WASHINGTON—For Republicans, the postelection blame game is already beginning.

With the GOP bracing to lose 20 House seats or more in the upcoming elections, conservatives are voicing anger at party leaders they say have abandoned endangered Republican lawmakers who hold positions—like opposition to abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research—that energize the party’s base.

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, scolded Rep. Tom Cole, the House GOP campaign committee chief, in a letter Thursday for yanking planned TV ads to help Republican Reps. Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado and Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

Both are hard-core conservatives who are facing tough re-election fights. The National Republican Congressional Committee—which has just a fraction of the money its Democratic counterpart has to spend in the crucial final days of the campaign—decided this week to scrap planned ad blitzes to help them and two other extremely vulnerable GOP lawmakers, Reps. Tom Feeney in Florida and Joe Knollenberg in Michigan.

“It appears that the NRCC is abandoning social conservative candidates and the issues for which they stand, particularly if they are championed by some of the most promising female legislators in the Congress,” Perkins wrote, calling the change in ad plans “a grave error.”

“This is no time to cut and run from a fight,” the letter said.

Musgrave’s race against Democrat Betsy Markey has long been regarded as one of her party’s toughest, while Bachmann’s chances against Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg looked good until recently, when she made controversial remarks on cable TV that Barack Obama may have “anti-American” views.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has since poured more than $1 million into Bachmann’s race, about what it has invested to oust Musgrave to the west.

The GOP political arm said Cole, R-Okla., doesn’t make the spending decisions, which are handled by a separate unit that by law is walled off from the rest of the committee.

Karen Hanretty, the committee’s spokeswoman, called the letter “puzzling,” given that the unit “has spent money on candidates who are pro-life conservatives by a margin of two to one.”

Republicans are facing an extraordinarily tough fight this year, defending 29 up-for-grabs seats where GOP lawmakers are leaving and another 25 or more incumbents in competitive races to keep their jobs. Just six Democratic slots are open, and the party has only 13 incumbents in competitive contests.

The GOP is waging the fight on what passes in the world of political campaigns for a shoestring budget: its House campaign arm has been outspent five-to-one by Democrats’, and had about $13 million in cash for the last three weeks of the campaign compared to $23 million for the Democratic committee.

“Our battlefield is the largest we’ve ever seen,” Hanretty wrote in a memo this week. “That means our money gets stretched a lot further and will stay focused on those areas most in need of assistance.”

The House GOP committee has also scaled back advertising in some races where the Republican candidate is considered less conservative, like Lynn Jenkins’ bid to unseat Democratic Rep. Nancy Boyda in Kansas. The decisions can be a sign that the party’s candidate has little chance of winning, or—less likely for Republicans this year—is so far ahead that he or she doesn’t need the help.

Bachmann, who hails from a conservative district north of Minneapolis-St. Paul, had about $1.2 million in campaign cash left as of last week, while Musgrave had about $325,000.

Perkins wrote that both were in “winnable districts,” and were running on issues—including support for a constitutional ban on gay marriage—”that motivate voters” and can win elections.

His criticism is just the leading edge of what strategists expect to be a bitter round of finger-pointing that follows a grim election outcome for Republicans.

“It is our belief that the reason Republicans are struggling is that they haven’t spoken strongly on the conservative issues,” said David Nammo, the executive director of the FRC’s political action committee.

The group, launched over the summer, has spent $100,000 airing TV and radio ads in Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and northern Virginia that highlight Obama’s support for abortion rights and say he has “dangerous values.”

It’s contributed $2,000 each to Musgrave and Bob Schaffer, the Republican candidate for Senate in Colorado.

The Senate Republican campaign committee decided this week to pull its ads from Colorado, where Schaffer is trailing his Democratic rival Rep. Mark Udall in the race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Wayne Allard.

Republican officials are anticipating the painful intraparty fight over such decisions after what are expected to be big losses on Election Day.

Wrote Hanretty: “There will be second-guessing on November 5th, no doubt.”

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